Pans (small seasonal ponds) are mysterious habitats. Little is known about their ecology and their occupants are usually well hidden below the murky depths. That’s about to change. In this episode of “Gorongosa Field Notes,” ecologist Joshua Daskin and field assistant Flavio Artur Moniz get acquainted with the animals that call pans home and reveal why these miniature ecosystems are so important to Gorongosa National Park.

“Pans here are really a blank slate scientifically.

We don’t know a whole lot about which species are living in them. We don’t know what those species are doing. Because the system here is relatively unstudied, the questions I’m trying to answer are quite straightforward.”